Hoping this helps to kick the school season off right.
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Movie Night with Witty Kids
My Kids are Too Witty for Their Ages: Exhibit #64837
Scene: Midnight movie night, all 3 kids and I are in the living room watching AXL on Netflix. Josh is asleep.
AXL, a robotic dog created for use by the military, escapes and becomes friends with a dirt bike riding teenager. In this particular scene, the dog is chasing after an enemy. The dog is on top of a camper, punching through trying to get to the enemy that’s underneath. (I swear it’s older kid friendly. It’s just totally sounding worse than it is).
The dog jumps from the top of the trailer and looks underneath it, finding the enemy. The dog opens its mouth, teeth made completely of sharp metal while the tongue is made up of 3 rotating wheels of razor blades, and growls like he’s an extra in Jurassic Park.
Finley: *in a Ben Stein monotone approach* “Yeah, at that point I’m just giving up. I’m just going to go ahead and stick out an arm to get it over with.”
Arkansas: Our Crystal Digging Adventure Explained
You've asked for it - and it's here! Below is the planning guide for the Arkansas portion of Josh's 40th birthday trip.
I've compiled a list of details, links and reviews for all of you in hopes that it helps you in planning your Arkansas crystal hunting, nature exploring getaway.
Monday, July 11, 2022
Arkansas Crystal Mining: Avatar Crystal Mine
My husband’s a closet back woods boy. Or maybe it’s obvious and I’m just in denial about it
Regardless, he spends his nights watching shows like Mountain Men, Appalachian Outlaws, Alaskan Bush People and YouTube videos of gold panners.
When I tell you he fan girled over meeting Joe Ray from The Boonies TV Show on National Geographic’s NatGeo channel, I absolutely mean it. I even had to kindly remind him a few times to leave him alone.
Watching it all finally click in his head when he realized who it was was amusing in its own right. He was every surprised face meme I’ve ever seen.
The cool thing? Joe owns the mineral lease to Avatar Crystal Mine so if you visit, you’ll get to meet Joe too.
This trip couldn’t have been more Josh oriented, even right down to its coincidental meetings.
Edit: Joe’s wife (so stinking friendly and personable) made the mistake of telling us they lived just down from Ray’s property so we had at least a misdemeanor stalking charge on our hands if they would have seen the drive back to Ray’s last night
Arkansas Crystal Mining: Avant's Fisher Mountain Mine
It only took me 37 years to realize I’m competitive by nature and that I’m not immune to physical labor. Go figure.
Yesterday Josh and I tried our hand at Avant Mining’s Fischer Mountain Claim. Following the theme of the entire trip, it was once again hot. For seemingly the hundredth day in a row the heat index was over 100 degrees and the radio stations warned of heat advisories. Luckily the air today seemed easier to breathe and wasn’t as “thick”.
That direct mf sun though 
.
The Fischer Mountain Mine is in the same area as the Twin Creek Mine. You know, the mine that got my ass sweat infused knickers in a knot the prior day.
From the get go this trip was seemingly much easier. We woke up around 6, made a fancy little breakfast, packed and then prepared for the 45 minute drive to hit the mine. It is critical in this heat to hit morning hours for mining. Once that 1pm-ish sun hits, it’s all downhill from there. I cannot reiterate that enough. If you mine in summer, start early.
The check in for this mine was not a broken down camper ran by a bitchy lady at the top of the mountain. Instead, you turn into the parking lot of a gorgeous museum at the bottom of the road. The vibe inside is clean and aesthetic. The most beautiful pieces the Avant Mining Company has pulled from their 35 claims are sitting proudly and beautifully displayed for others to enjoy (and to purchase, but I was reminded frequently that I’m unemployed and to not even think about it ). The pieces were clean, crisp like a Polar Pop Coke when you need it the most and so neat to look at.
The friendliest young man checked us in and helped us with directions and briefings before we ventured off into the mountain. He let us know we were the first people of the day. I let him know I was proud of my husband for actually being on time for once in his life.
Must have been yesterday’s post that inadvertently helped
He asked *us* if we had any questions about the company, the mine or any of the safety and area briefings he went over twice before we left. Yesterday, just asking the woman in the busted up camper at the top of the hill if that’s where we checked in at seemed to set her off so this young man’s friendliness was much appreciated.
The road to Fischer Mountain is hairy in spots, much hairier than Twin Creek. There were a few times I just closed my eyes and made peace with the Lord; only to open them and to bark driving orders from the passenger seat. For the first time in our relationship Josh jumped, sighed out loud and said, “Gd, Amanda. You are going to cause me to have an accident one day. F*ck.”
Whereas I firmly believe it has been my passenger seat reminders that have kept us accident safe thus far. Knock on wood.
Once at the mine we were surprised to learn that we could literally park right next to it. This was so helpful because it gave us the shortest of distances to walk to cool down in the car. This, by far, was the best perk of the mine. We would frequently be able to take 20 minute cool down breaks which was amazing.
We found our shaded area and began to dig. Fischer Mountain’s soil just looked better from the get go so we already had an idea this this mine might just pay off a little better than the last. The soil was enriched with iron and was the deepest red of color. This is a good indicator that the tailing piles (piles of dirt the trucks bring up to move out of the way for the commercial mining area) had the potential for great finds.
I’ll stop here for a second to get geeky with you real quick. Twin Creek has beautiful crystals - but to get to them, you need to tap into pockets. Pockets are the areas in the quartz seams or veins that hold the crystals. To do this, you need a chisel and hammer and need to chip away at hard rock.
It’s 100 degrees outside. There would be no rock tapping for us. I’m built like a lumberjack but I sure as hell can’t function like one.
Tailing piles are what are mentioned above. Twin Creek’s tailings seemed stagnant (meaning it seemed like they hadn’t brought truck loads up in a hot minute - but then again we never moved from the shaded area to really get the full scoop). Fischer Mountain’s tailings seemed fresh (meaning it seemed like trucks had just dumped piles). Twin Creek’s tailings were a darker orange color. Fischer was a deep red. By theory, Fischer’s tailings should hold some neat material.
The area we worked had been untouched. We could tell by many reasons. I’ll jot those below in case any of you ever explore the crystal mines here:
1. The soil was packed. There was no loose dirt like someone had sifted through it.
2. The minerals were all still in their original layers. The clay was deep red, which turned into gray material (“look for the gray in the clay” is a common crystal finder piece of advice - that’s where you find the goood stuff), which turned into matrix, which turned into crystals. It was like a geological sandwich.
3. We had to dig about 3 foot down to get to it.
We found the most beautiful of pieces; clusters (lots of crystal points making up one piece), double terminated points (crystals with points on both ends) and giant “heart breakers” (broken pieces of giant specimens).
Now I’ve been a rock hound since I was old enough to walk our alley in my childhood home. My Pap would come in from work, tell me the city had put new gravel down in the alley and away I went. I would walk that alley for hours looking for fossils and minerals. I once had a basement wall lined with 5 gallon buckets.
Josh’s love for hounding only came about a year ago when there was nothing on Netflix and I forced him to watch YouTube videos of people finding minerals one night. Now, it’s a nightly ritual.
So imagine how ironic it was that he found pocket after pocket of large, beautiful crystals. I mean this guy was pulling out crystals that I was salivating over.
Only slightly butt hurt I made the comment, “I’ve been the rock chick my whole life and look what you’re pulling out.”
To which he mic drops with, “Makes up for all the times I have to put the worm on your hook and take the fish off when we’re fishing.”
Touché.
We worked from 9am to 5pm on the dot digging crystals. I was so surprised that I was able to go longer in the heat than he, but I was fueled ever so slightly by my competitiveness - and that was enough for me to keep digging.
When we finished the day our body’s were so sore and dirty. We had raked, dug and hauled soil and rock until we were weak in the arms and were completely iron stained from head to toe. It was the most physical labor I had ever been involved with in my entire life. I kept telling Josh I felt like the 8th dwarf (refusing to ask him what my name would be). He kept asking me to stop whistling while I worked.
When we got home we washed ourselves up, cooked ourselves a modest dinner and relaxed in the cool air before deciding to take our poles to the ponds. Our legs already looked like brail literature with the amount of mosquito bites on them from the night before, but we thought, “ah, what the hell are a few more?”
And then Josh caught a 15lb catfish on 4lb test and I caught a series of 2 inch bluegill - that I had to have him take off for me.
Imagine that.
Arkansas Crystal Mining: Twin Creek Mine
And I geeked out so hard.
We set our alarms for 5:30am to make the hour trek out of the most beautiful of BFEs to the Twin Creek Crystal Mine.
When I say BFE, I mean the closest Dollar General to us is over a half hour away.
Josh did his usual morning routine consisting of drinking multiple cups of coffee, snorting his sinus drainage down at max volume and melting into the couch while trying to hold his phone in the sky to find service for a half an hour. Meanwhile, I’m feeling the rage build as I’m racing to beat the clock. I leave grumpy and annoyed. I’m a woman who is usually at least 15 minutes early. He’s a man that’s at least 15 minutes late.
The grumpiness only multiplies when we realize that we’ve plugged an incorrect address in our GPS and are now smack dab in the middle of a mountain trailer court 45 minutes away from our intended destination. There was another heat advisory today so we were trying desperately to outrun the climbing UV index to get an early start. The near death experience (or so it felt like - this may be exaggerated for content) on Crystal Vista put some much needed common sense into our excitement for crystal digging.
We finally find the mine and take the ol’ trusty Acadia up the side of the mountain. The road isn’t the greatest. The pot holes would make I-65 blush. There is also little signage and no cell service to ensure that you’re on the right gravel road out of many. It took a lot of self control for me to not lose my shit multiple times.
After a few Hail Marys we make it up the hill and travel into the mine. We are the first to arrive for the day, even after our setbacks. I am thrilled at this point and all of the gravel road rage subsides.
But the early bird does not get the worm in this story.
Here’s a little something you need to know if you make it this direction. Bring cash. Have cash. Swim in cash. Do not rely on your debit card - especially if you travel 20 miles up a hill only for the rudest (this one not exaggerated for content) woman at the check in to tell you she doesn’t have minutes for her phone and therefore cannot accept your debit card.
And y’all know how I handle super, super rude people.
I’ll spare the details but I’m sure if Josh posts anything about the day he’ll reference some award winning Amanda one liners.
After the colorful comments, witty word lashings and ‘am I a Karen?’ self questioning, we go back down the mountain to the closest ATM which is 30 minutes away.
We finally make it back up the mountain for a second time with cash in hand. Josh refuses to let me go to the check in station because I could not play nice so he gets us all checked in. We secure a spot in the shade and get to digging.
The shaded area isn’t near as rich in minerals as the sun exposed areas but I’m not genetically made up like my naturally tan skinned husband. If I am not in the shade I will leave blister juice on your home furnishings and I do not want to do that to my sweet Ray and Karen.
After a lot of hard digging and scraping we find at least 1/4 of a 5 gallon bucket of clear crystals with the most insane points and lots of little crystal clusters.
During our dig we had a family sit next to us in our shaded area. It’s a mother and her 15 kids. Again, not exaggerated for content. Many of the children ventured off into other parts of the large mine. The two kids that stayed in our area were sweet as pie. The youngest, Joe, was probably 9 or 10. He reminded me so much of my Reedman. I kept secretly throwing super nice crystals his direction so he could “find” them.
I’ll stop here before the next part to remind you that not everything is as it appears. I mean we all know that (except for Josh’s Aunt Mary - ope). Hell, my house more often than not looks like it needs condemned with laundry piles I hate getting to but I’ll hide them for a banging interior picture.
The mother quickly added to my salty summer attitude when she demanded the kids shovel in 100 degree sun so she could sit and bark orders, gaslight them literally the entire time and be super narcissistic. They have a website and they were recording their YouTube videos on how happy they are “taking their kids back from the pits of hell in schools”.
I can personally tell you the mother is an absolute fraud. I was appalled at her slave driving antics. At one point I was ready to haul poor overheated Joe off of the mountain but his mother kept feeding him the “you’re a quitter if you stop”, “we have to do this for our YouTube channel” verbiage. Never mind the fact he was bright red, hardly able to even hold the shovel and profusely sweating. He kept repeating over and over he wanted to go home; at one time getting overly emotional trying to tell her how hot he was. Broke my heart.
The kicker? They had the same last name as us.
Edit: And yes, there were colorful comments there too. I think I was nearly thrown out of that mine twice.
Anyway.
Tomorrow we are braving the heat again to make it to Fischer Mountain to try our hand at this mining claim. I can’t wait to see what we uncover. Crystal mining itself is such a neat experience.
Let’s just hope we’re early and that I wake up on the right side of the mountain before we go
On the top of the Ouachita Mountains, in an active crystal mine, Josh and I got to experience digging for our own crystals today.
The Best Welcome Committee in Arkansas
We’ve made it to our next stop on the Josh Turns 40 World Tour; Ray and Karen’s nearly 400 acre private property located deep (I’m talking like we don’t have service for 20 miles give or take deep) in the heart of Big Fork, Arkansas. We are directly in the center of Ouachita Mountains and we have free range of the entire property.
Ray is a kind, soft spoken story teller and Karen is the knows no stranger, is going to take care of you so well you’ll never want to leave southern grandma. And bonus points - they adore kids.
They have 7 large ponds here that are stocked and spring fed. The photo below shows just one of those ponds. The spring on their property that feeds into the ponds is ice cold, crystal clear and pumps thousands of gallons of water an hour. Crystal Geyser Water actually fills their trucks up at Ray and Karen’s spring and has a small plant about 30 miles east of here. If you’ve ever had Crystal Geyser Water, you’ve probably drank from Ray and Karen’s property.
There are 4 resident bald eagles that we can view from the sunroom along with cattle, bear and deer. As we pulled in and were greeted by Ray, a giant 8 point buck casually strolled through the front yard like a friendly neighbor. Ray told us we’d see more deer than we’d even bargain for. Josh was too busy drooling over the deer to hear that part.
We were sad to see Ray making the trek alone to greet us. He said it was too hot for Molly, the canine welcoming committee everyone loves so much from the reviews. I can’t wait to meet her.
The house is an older country home with basic, older furnishing. It reminds Josh and I both of a lot of our childhood. The road itself, though much longer, reminds me of the road that takes me back to my Uncle Ronnie and my great-grandpa Bowman’s property.
One of the creeks that run through their property, Kate’s Creek, has quite the Indian past and is a geology geek’s playground. You cannot keep me out of my uncle’s creek and I can promise you won’t keep me out of Ray and Karen’s.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I was really wanting to surprise Josh for his 40th by specifically searching for places off of the beaten path that could incorporate all of the things he enjoys doing. It’s a trip that is specifically tailored to him. It had started as a plan to surprise him with a trip to Vegas including his friends and ended this way. I’m so glad it did
I cannot wait to see the stars here at night. There is not a soul around for miles except for Ray and Karen. The property itself mixed with Ray and Karen’s perfect amount of hospitality is going to make this a “come back to” spot. I cannot wait to bring the kids here one day.
And I really can’t wait to play with the baby cow that was born yesterday. I see you back there, you sweet little milk carton, and I’m going to snuggle the shit out of you.
Ray and Karen are retired school teachers with big hearts, kind smiles and are made from head to toe with the nearly extinct southern charm. The ‘bake you muffins and dropping them off while telling you if you catch any fish from the pond they’re happy to fry it up for you’ kind of charm. They are amazing.
My Big Hearted Husband
This is the kind of guy my husband is.
Today I had the bright idea to scale the side of a crystal mountain at peak temp time to dig for crystals. The hike, at many points, feels completely vertical and the path is made up of steep, rocky terrain. It’s exactly 100 degrees outside today and there is a 105-110 heat advisory for the majority of Arkansas.
I know. I’m a dumbass.
I am hauling our water backpack and he’s hauling our digging tools and bucket. We can only go about 20 yards each pass before the need to stop is evident. At stopping we’d use cooling towels, ice and water to try to keep us cool and would sit on rocks to settle our heart rates down. We made it halfway up the mile path before we decided to stop to dig.
Before stopping we had passed a lady who had to stop on the side of the path just below us. She was alone with her tools and was also digging. She couldn’t go any further.
After about 20 minutes of digging and sweating we think we want to try to make it the rest of the way up the mountain. We get back on the trail and start the trek. The mountain’s peak is where the big, clear crystals are.
I get super dizzy and real nauseas about 50 more yards in so we abort mission. We stay in a shaded area until I feel like I can go back down. The trip down is not easy with a 30lb backpack on because again, it’s such a steep mountain side.
Josh is really concerned about me. Never mind his own sweat, bright red face and stumbling. He refuses to let me hold the water backpack anymore. At this point he’s now probably holding about 60lbs of gear.
On the way back down we repeat the stop and hydrate process. On one of the stops we notice the lady we passed earlier in obvious heat distress. She’s trying to carry her gear and buckets of crystals she’s mined. She is really struggling with the downhill descent. We briefly talk to her, she says she’s going to sit for a bit until she can go again and that’s she’s fine. We carry on.
My husband finishes the rest of the hike to our car, puts ice water on me, turns the AC on, makes sure I’m ok and then says “I’m going back up for that lady.” Never mind the fact he is really struggling himself. I told him to sit in the air and cool off first before going but he didn’t listen.
About 20 minutes later here he comes with the lady’s bucket of crystals and digging tools while she trails behind with a cooling towel.
There’s a lot of bullshit nice people out there; the people that do things for the accolades, the pats on the back, the praise, the reward and the show.
Then there’s Josh - the guy who wouldn’t have slept a wink all night worrying about whether or not she made it off that mountain ok if he hadn’t went back and helped.
Actually, scratch that. He would have never left that woman on that mountain without going back to help. His big ol heart wouldn’t have let him.
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)